21. Kale

Christianand I trailed behind Ford and Brooks on the walk to The Black Door. It was a wonder my legs even worked for how much adrenaline coursed through my system after my unplanned confession of love to Christian after dinner. It was the absolute last thing I ever wanted to tell him, but at the same time, the confession had felt entirely unavoidable. The feeling had been swirling around my chest from the second he stepped into my house, probably the first second he stepped into my life, and it expanded and grew with every breath, every touch. Taking up space and air until the only way to live with it inside of me was to address its presence.

Christian didn't say it back to me, but that hadn't felt important at the time. With his hand in mine, my scarf wrapped around his throat, it still wasn't important. The man I loved was beside me and that was the only thing that mattered. Jesus, was this how Beamer had felt when he fell in love with Dalton? What a consuming, terrifying and honestly unwelcome feeling.

When we reached the entrance for The Black Door, Christian gave my hand a squeeze. I looked over at him, immediately noticing the worried knit of his brows.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

He fished his passport out of his pocket to show at the desk for his identification. "I'm just thinking about what you said at the restaurant."

"Did I ruin everything?"

"It just warrants a broader conversation," he said, flashing a bright smile to Avery at the desk.

"Mr. Sheffield, Your R?—"

Christian held up his hand and shook his head.

"Not here," he murmured.

Avery gave him a jerky nod and handed him back his passport. "Have a good evening, gentlemen."

By the time we got inside, Ford and Brooks were already lost in the crowd, and I pulled Christian through to the bar. The place was quiet, but not quiet enough for the conversation that Christian and I were apparently about to have. Admittedly, not what I'd had in mind when I caved to pressure about coming in the first place, but discussing my unrequited love for a foreign royal felt like an appropriate level of masochism for the building.

From the far end of the bar, Brooks caught my eye and I pointed up, letting them both know I was taking Christian upstairs. It was more exposed up there, but more private at the same time. Even with the floor-to-ceiling glass windows in lieu of covered walls, something about the height and the exclusivity made the top floor feel like a secure little safe haven. It was one of my most favorite places that wasn't my house. Even if I wasn't with a partner, something about the way discretion and privacy seemed to float through the air had always been calming to me.

Brooks pointed up as well and I shook my head before tilting it to the side toward Christian. He answered that with a knowing nod, but tapped his watch, indicating he wasn't going to give me all night. With that out of the way, I procured drinks for me and Christian, then headed for the elevators and up to the next floor.

The view of the city from that high up had never gotten boring, and I gave Christian's hand a squeeze as we stepped off the elevator.

"They don't have views like this at home," he said to no one in particular.

It took some time, but I found us a secluded enough seat near the back of the room, and we settled in. Christian looked in his element, leaning back and taking a slow swallow of his drink. He surveyed the room with all the arrogance and authority of a king he'd never be before turning his attention to me.

"It just warrants a broader conversation," he repeated his line from earlier, and I gave him a nod in return.

"Normally I'd start, but…"

"You're not quite yourself," Christian supplied.

"You have that effect on me."

He smirked, shifting his weight with a quick grimace.

"Does it hurt?" I asked.

"You have that effect on me," he said, taking another sip of his drink.

I watched the way his lips wrapped around the rim of the glass, and I swallowed back a groan at how horny the simple action made me. This warranted a whole different kind of conversation entirely. I wasn't just in love; I was in way over my head with him, and he knew it.

"I think your confession at dinner changes everything," he finally said.

"It shouldn't."

I wanted it to.

"No?" He arched a doubtful brow at me.

"My feelings are my own," I assured him. "It doesn't need to change what we have."

"And what do we have, Kale? A felony kidnapping charge and enough orgasms to last me through until the next one?"

I snorted, not enjoying the way he diminished our time together. But he also wasn't entirely wrong. At the end of the day, though, I didn't want to lose the connection between us just because I had done something stupid like fall in love with him. I'd figure out how to manage my own expectations, my own heart. I couldn't lose the parts of him I had. It was positively out of the question.

"This wasn't ever anything serious," I started to explain and his eyebrow raised higher into his hairline.

"Do you fly around the world for sex often?" he asked.

"No, but?—"

"Do you make a habit of kissing strangers on the street and then taking them to fancy hotels to fuck?" He must have read the answer on my face, because he laughed and shook his head. "Don't answer that one."

"I'm just saying this wasn't what we agreed on."

"We didn't agree on anything besides dinner in America and we're already well past that," he said.

I hated how calm he was, how cool and collected about the whole thing like it wasn't my heart on the line. I knew that made me a hypocrite for somehow wanting him to take my feelings into consideration and ignore them at the same time. I'd never imagined myself to be a fair or balanced sort of man, though, and that was never more evident than right now.

"I just want to enjoy the limited time we have together," I said.

"But you don't want it to be limited, do you?"

I took a healthy swallow of my drink, looking for the answer beneath the ice. "No."

Christian moved, stretching out and crossing one leg over the other and casually resting his drink on his knee. Based on appearance alone, we could have been talking about the weather or the quality of the seafood at dinner. He looked absolutely unfazed by my confession, almost like he'd expected it.

"Then tell me that," he said.

"I just did." I scrubbed a hand down my face, wishing I could dig into the floor and bury myself in the dirt beneath the garage level of the building.

"No, you misunderstand me," Christian said, throwing me a smug look that dripped with desire. "Then tell me that."

"I just did," I repeated, finishing off my drink and setting it on the table in front of us. My frustration was mounting, and I tried to swallow it down to save myself from lashing out. I hated being misunderstood, and it was clear Christian and I were not having the same conversation. This was exactly what I'd been worried about after I spilled my heart to him. It would have been better to keep my feelings to myself so things could have carried on as we'd both intended.

"You're not listening to me, Mr. Sheffield." Christian leaned forward and set his drink beside mine, then he slid off the seat and onto his knees at my feet. "Tell me what you want."

It hurt to breathe.

Seeing him on his knees like that was perfection, better than having him over my lap with my handprints all over his ass, better than seeing his lips swollen and shiny from sucking my cock to completion, better than anything I'd ever seen in my life.

"I don't want you to leave," I finally whispered, the words jagged and sharp like razor wire in my throat. "I don't want this to be over."

"Then tell me to stay."

"You can't," I said.

"Can't I?" He sank down, dropping his ass onto his heels.

"I thought that was the whole kidnapping part, princess." At my use of the endearment, his entire face softened. I took his face into my hand, committing the way he leaned into me like it was second nature to memory. Just one more perfect moment with a man that could never truly be mine.

"Be honest with me," Christian said, his eyes closed. He reached up and covered my hand with both of his, keeping my fingers pressed against his face. He was so beautiful, so at peace. My heart twisted, fighting for space with the other feelings that were still far too big for my chest to contain.

"I can't ask you for the things I want."

"Why not?" He opened his eyes and locked his stare onto mine like he could see right through me. "You haven't had a problem asking for anything you wanted so far."

He slid my hand off his face and toward his throat, the underside of his chin. My fingers curled up and over, pressing against his lips which were still puffy from the way I'd fucked his face earlier in the day. He was correct with his statement, and I owed him as much of my own truth as I could manage.

When Ford and I hatched the plan to pretend kidnap Christian, I didn't have any expectations beyond a fun weekend of sex that I imagined would be our last. Maybe I'd pretended it was going to be a sendoff before I ended up spending the rest of my life chasing the high I found when I was with him. Nothing more than that. But from the moment he walked through the door at Parrish's apartment, I knew it was different. Knew I wanted more.

Wanted everything.

And that was the thing about me. I was a man of money and a man of means. I very rarely took no for an answer, and Christian's gentle prodding reminded me of that.

"I want to be with you," I said.

He smiled, and I hooked my fingers over his lower lip, over his teeth. He let me pull his mouth open, shoulders jerking when I depressed his tongue and worked my way toward the back of his throat.

"I want to do dirty fucking things to you, princess. For a very long time."

Christian made a quiet choking sound, but he didn't even try to force my hand out of his mouth. His eyes had already started to take on that glassy sort of look that happened when he was falling deep into subspace, and I relished how easy it was to get him there. My chest swelled with pride, with need.

"It's more than that, though."

A tear slipped out from the corner of his eye, and I withdrew my fingers from his mouth, wiping them dry against his cheek. Christian's eyes rolled back in his head and he left his mouth open.

It was an invitation for me to continue.

Swiping the tear with the side of my knuckle, I took a deep breath. "I want to find a way to be with you for real," I admitted.

Christian's nostrils flared and his tongue darted out, licking the corner of his lower lip. Even as his expression had gone hazy, he held my gaze, attention rapt.

"I want you here. I want you in my home. In my bed. I want you marked. I want you to be mine."

I needed to stop before I said something embarrassing, but much like at dinner, the confession poured out of me with so much sincerity I could almost see Christian's pupils turn from black circles into hearts. This was what he'd really been after, I realized. The transparency, the honesty, the sincerity. I didn't know a single thing about Christian's life at home, but through his submission I'd picked up bits and pieces about him that others had seemingly spent his entire life either missing or ignoring.

There had to be a special kind of torment that came with being so far down the line of succession that your ascension was beyond improbable, but you were still held to all the same expectations and restrictions as everyone else. To spend your entire life as an afterthought? I couldn't imagine. And with me, Christian was the first thought, the only thought.

He was everything I'd ever wanted, and I wanted him to be all in.

What was the saying?

In for a penny, in for a pound.

I licked my lips and gave him one more answer, "More than all of that, I want to take care of you and I want you to love me back. Holy shit, Christian, I know I have no right to ask it, but one day I want you to love me too."

A flash of clarity shot out of his eyes, and he swayed forward, mouth angling up at the corner. "Well. You're in luck, Mr. Sheffield. It does seem today is the day."